Mortal Adversary
by Ione
Summary: I am not going to set myself up as an enemy to you, Goblin King. If you want entertainment of that sort you’ll have to try somewhere else. You will never die; any opposition I could offer you would be pointless.
1. A Social Call

Sarah was thirty-three years old when she walked into her apartment one day and found the Goblin King sitting on her sofa, gaz

Sarah was thirty-three years old when she walked into her apartment one day and found the Goblin King sitting on her sofa, gazing idly out the window onto the busy street below.

Sarah was not surprised in the least. Actually, she'd been expecting his visit for quite some time. So while seeing an unknown man upon her sofa caused her heart momentarily to skip a beat, when she recognized him (his face turned from the scene outside and gave her a sharp-eyed smirk) she was tolerably able to go around her normal routine.

Tossing her bag onto the sofa and stripping off her cardigan (it was unseasonably warm for a March day in Washington D.C.) she washed her hands in the kitchen and put a kettle of water to heat. The mail went in its usual spot on the hallway table, her shoes flung carelessly beneath. Barefoot, she marched into the living room and sat down in her grandmother's rickety rocking chair (Karen had begged her to take it with her—it clashed with her aesthetic sensibilities) and faced him, in silence.

"I must say, you have grown up, Sarah."

The way he smiled as he said her name, the familiar sing-song with the emphasis on the second syllable, made her smile herself.

"I have. What do you think of that, Goblin King?"

"I am most agreeably surprised. When last I saw you, you were not very promising."

"That's surprising. That was the very day I started growing up."

Lips pursed, he nodded. "It happens that way."

"How so?"

"The Labyrinth forces change, especially to those who were not expecting it. I am grateful that you took the more logical way towards maturity."

"The other way being…?"

"Those who deny the Labyrinth and its powers of metamorphosis often go insane."

Sarah blinked. "Ah. Then I'm glad I took the way I did."

Glancing towards the kitchen, she noticed that a thin plume of steam was issuing from the spout of the kettle. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

Eyes fixed on her face, Jareth studied her in silence until he finally smiled. "I would, thank you."

Sarah relaxed, tension releasing from her stomach. Standing, she turned and pulled two mugs (debating whether to use her nice tea set with matching saucers and deciding against it) from the cabinet and steeped the tea. Putting both mugs on a tray, she added her open pint of milk, sugar bowl, and two spoons to the tray and carried it to the coffee table in the living room. If he took it with lemon, he was out of luck.

Though he must have attended and been served tea in a much more elegant fashion throughout his many years of life, he maneuvered around her amateur set-up very well. Taking it black with two spoonfuls of sugar while she loaded her tea with milk they both stirred in silence while listening to the choky hum of the air conditioner in the background. There was a kind of sharp odor in the air, and Sarah made a mental note to have someone come in to take a look at the central air…it smelled musty, like a dank cave where pirates came to hide their treasure…

"Well, some things do not change."

"Sorry?"

"You breathe stories, Sarah. When you walk, when you look at things, your mind and imagination breed stories and legends and people…always an admirable talent. I used to pity the fact that as a child you lacked the discipline to give them life. But your maturity has solved that problem."

"I wouldn't put it that way."

"How would you put it?"

"…That, what you said, sounds much too romantic. They're not alive yet…I'm not that good. They're still…paper constructs."

Discussing her fantasy writing with a creature of legend made her tongue stumble. It felt unnatural, wrong even, to speak of this with him. Somehow she got the feeling he was laughing down his sleeve at her.

He chuckled. "'Paper constructs'," he quoted, "and yet _I_ am the romantic one."

She wished she'd added sugar to her tea when she had the chance, but now she wouldn't lean forward. Any closer to him and she'd burn up from the proximity. Younger, she'd not noticed what brilliant and vibrant life poured through him…like a nuclear reactor, he would be living long, long after she was dead, and mere mortals didn't come into contact with that and live.

It was like having a lion in her living room.

Sudden suspicion. "Can you read minds?"

He laughed. "That power is given to very few, Sarah. I recognize your talent, when it coincides with my own. As an artist recognizes a fellow artist, nothing more."

Silence again. Sarah contemplated her tea, trying hard to go against years of instinct and training to suppress any similes or stories that would likely arise from this situation. She found it unsettling to be thus found out by him, of all people. He, of course, looked insultingly comfortable, even on her ratty blue sofa with the disorderly row of spider plants on the windowsill behind.

"I have enjoyed your books."

Against her will, a sharp smile crossed her face, and for once she was able to laugh at him. "I thought you might."

"I noticed that you deliberately omitted the 'magic' words."

"Those thirteen hours might have, in hindsight, been good for me, but I doubt your kingdom would have the same strength if every fifteen year old were able to get through it."

"True. Sarah, ever the beneficent goddess, caring for the masses of the self-indulgent and careless."

His words cut sharp and deep.

"Children are innocent and heartless. J.M. Barrie said that, and he was right. But they change and grow, even without the Labyrinth's help."

"Tell me Sarah, were you innocent? Did you not say the words with intent to hurt?"

"I have been through this, Goblin King, without your help. I have come to peace with the mistake I made and I will not be made to feel guilty for it."

"Strong words. Good. I would expect no less from you. I would not like it if I could make you cower, Sarah."

His words were sickening, and Sarah felt her shoulders tighten with tension. Her grip on the mug was uncomfortable, and it was long empty. But she could not reach forward to set her cup down. Though he said he did not want her to be frightened, she _was_. The reasons as to why, though, were unclear even to her. She'd been expecting him to come, after her series on the Labyrinth had been published and steadily climbing up the bestseller list, but his actions now that he was here were not what she'd been expecting.

She'd been expecting him to try and make her feel guilty, to lord it over her that he'd been privy to her most terrible moment of reckless arrogance. She'd expected taunts that her writing was borrowed, unoriginal, pale copies of a masterpiece work. She'd expected him to lacerate every part of her most vulnerable insecurities.

This almost solicitous and admiring attitude, though, was terrifying because she didn't know where it was going.

Bull by the horns, Sarah. "Why are you here?"

Jareth had not been looking at her, and he kept his face turned away for a long moment before responding. "Tell me, Sarah, did I make so little impression on you that you felt it necessary to write me almost entirely out of your novels?"

Pause. "You are in them. You serve the function you served with me; you pop in, menace and throw in some monkey wrenches, and get out." Another pause. "And then you're defeated." _How cruel_ can_ I be?_ "Pretty standard, I thought."

Another silence. As if responding to the thread of another conversation, the Goblin King remarked idly, "Do you know, Sarah, that you were supposed to be in love with me? Well, perhaps thirteen hours' acquaintance is not long enough for love, but regardless, you were supposed to be infatuated enough with me to cease pursuing your quest. You have no idea, do you, the number of women—and men—who fell for this trap."

Sarah had to bite her lip to stop it from trembling. God, if only he would ridicule her so she could fight back! "I am not surprised, but I don't happen to be made that way, Goblin King. I was not then and am not now in love with you."

"I know."

"Why are you here?"

"…It is tiresome, sometimes, to be around those who love you."

"You mean, this is just a social call?"

"It is not often that the Labyrinth is defeated. The last victor died some dozen years before you were born. I know something of your life; I was curious. But I cannot read minds, as I told you. I can only infer what you are like from what you produce. I enjoyed your novels, and wanted to know more of the you who wrote them."

Sarah let out a shaky breath. He noticed, and smiled. It was not a kind smile.

"You will not save them from me, Sarah. Wishes are made every day, and though that particular formula will never fail to summon me, I can, if I desire, respond to other wishes. And I do."

"I am not going to set myself up as an enemy to you, Goblin King. If you want entertainment of that sort you'll have to try somewhere else. You will never die; any opposition I could offer you would be pointless."

"…You are indeed _much _wiser than you used to be. Very well. I shall stay in touch, Sa-rah."

And then he was gone.

After a long moment, Sarah gathered the tea things and brought them back to the kitchen. She could hardly stand to touch his mug, and instead set it as far back into the pantry as she could reach, not caring if the remaining sugar bred mold. The rest of the dishes she washed and set away.

Then she went into her bedroom and sat against the window, wrapped up in her old college sweatshirt for suddenly the air conditioning was too cold.

It might have been ridiculously melodramatic, and as a writer she would have reprimanded herself for thinking it, but she knew she had not seen the last of him.


	2. Dream on Dream

Sarah's eyes fluttered, and she winced against the brilliant orange light of the dusty landscape. Her feet shifted uneasily against the fine grains of sand that scorched every pore of her skin, even through her flip-flops. She gasped with pain, and felt her toe hit the broad edge of a rock.

Though opening her eyes let the light in to lance her sensitive nerve endings, she shaded her gaze and found her way to the top of the broad boulder, about a foot off the desert floor, and less agonizingly hot in the searing midday sun. At least, she thought it was midday. Come to think of it, she had no idea what time it was. Glancing at her watch, she saw the hands spinning crazily, and felt nauseas. She didn't look down again.

Good god, if she stayed out here any longer she'd go blind. She dug into her shoulder bag and brought out her sunglasses; though they couldn't stop all the light, at least they took the edge off. She could look around without tears coming to defend her eyes from instantly drying out.

The desert was infinite, though by no means empty; indeed, it was studded with an odd assortment of refugees.

There was a grandfather clock, half buried, listing far to the right, pendulum still swinging, though its hands, like those on her own watch, were moving far too quickly.

A baby carriage lay abandoned, white wicker latticing frosted with fine grains of orange sand, like a dusting of snow. The blankets inside were chaotic, disturbed, and a little purple elephant lay forlorn inside, seeming to cry for its lost owner.

There were two broken oars next to a capsized rowboat; a bronze bedstead, brilliant as red-hot iron in the sun; a flock of abandoned books, pages curled and rustling in the constant wind that swept a blanket of sand over everything, eternally…

Sarah shuddered. Where_ was_ she? Was there any shelter she could reach or create, just until the sun went down?

About fifty yards to her left, a stepladder stood, legs buried firmly in the sand. Maybe if she were just a little higher she could see something besides the eerie graveyard of lives.

Reaching into her bag yet again, she brought out her cotton scarf and ripped it in two, using each half to securely wrap up her feet. The thin cloth might not offer much protection, but she'd take whatever she could get, and unless she wanted to run from island to island (and therefore probably faint with heat exhaustion before she even got to the ladder) she'd have to move slowly.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped off the rock into the blistering sand. Funny how things seemed bitter cold when they were at their warmest, she reflected, deliberately reigning in her instinct to run and curtail the pain. Slowly, step by purgatorial step, she reached the ladder, and climbed up, feeling the worn wood creak under her weight. It was so dry and heated that she thought she might be able to burn the whole thing with only one flick of her crappy plastic lighter.

Thankfully, her gamble had paid off. From the top of the ladder, maybe seven feet up, she could distinguish a dark mass to her far left. The whole desert was so flat that the mountains surrounding it seemed startlingly close, but she knew it was just a trick of the sun; she must be at least two, if not three miles distant from the conglomeration of hills and walls and…

Oh, God.

The Labyrinth.

When her throat started to burn, she realized she was hyperventilating and sucking down the fine grains of dust that saturated the air. Though the sun was blistering, a fine sheen of cold sweat dripped down her neck, mingling with the dust in the air and clogging her pores, making her whole skin feel gritty.

What the hell was she doing here? How on earth did he have the power to do this to her? He shouldn't be able to do _anything_ to her, much less teleport her to somewhere she damn well didn't want to be!

"Goblin King!"

Her voice was a pitiful thing, snatched immediately by the wind and hurled into nothingness. She sucked down another lungful, coughing past the dust, and tried again.

"Goblin King! You have no right! You have no power over me!"

Her head was spinning in wide, slow circles and her grip on the ladder was getting weak as her strength faded. But she refused to give up without a fight.

"_Jareth_!"

Her hand slipped and she tumbled backwards, landing hard on the packed earth and staring directly into the sun. Its brilliance filled her whole vision; what a sight she must be, feet encased in floral print, sunglasses hooked over one ear, lying in the sand with the skin of other lives curling round to bury her…

…Sarah gasped, and woke up. The orange light of the Underground sun merged with the fluorescent bulb over the bathroom sink, and her cold sweat felt icy in the breath of the building's A/C unit. She shivered, and licked her lips. Catching her reflection in the mirror, she tried to smile reassuringly, only to feel the skin of her lips crack; they were bone dry, and crusted around with…dirt?

She leaned closer to rub some tap water over her mouth, and watched as a telltale orange smear appeared.

Not dirt. Sand. Every time she shifted on her feet, or moved her arm, more grains of fine sand spilled out of her clothes and pores to shimmer to the ground, glittering like copper flakes on the cool tiles.

Her fear coiled tightly into anger. Slamming open a bathroom stall, she stripped down to her underwear and shook each item of clothing as hard as she could, dressing only once she was sure the sand was completely gone. Then, rummaging through her bag for her lip balm, she checked the contents and was pleased to find that her jaunt hadn't lost her either her scarf (still in one piece, even!) or her sunglasses.

"Well, that's something, anyway," she grumbled, glad to hear that her voice wasn't shaky or hoarse. She was due on in—quick watch check, hands moving normally—ten minutes, and after having to miss last week's appointment because of a emergency meeting with the artist over the illustrations for the next volume, she really didn't want to disappoint the kids this time.

Her lips looked awful, slathered with balm, but at least she could talk and hopefully the nook would be too shadowed for anyone to notice. It was really sweet of Helen and Luke to keep their store open after-hours for an authors' reading corners, and it was particularly apropos tonight, because she was at the chapter where her heroine got lost in the mysterious Shadow Forest.

She pushed open the door of the bathroom and took a deep breath, listening to the low murmur of parents' and children's voices mingling in the main room. Helen greeted her with a smile and the large, library edition illustrated copy of her book that she read from, week after week. She had one of her own, but Helen had asked to be allowed to use her own, so she could keep what she called the Author's Copy in the store, for everyone to see.

Sarah was still unused to all the attention, and thinking of children touching the book with awe and wonder was still enough to make her blush.

A light round of applause greeted her as she climbed into the leather armchair in the corner of the big room, and she smiled and nodded a greeting to everyone before she opened to the place they'd left off last time and started to read.

"The Princess took uncertain steps, the farther and farther she went into the woods. The ground seemed treacherous, the moss holding her feet and the roots popping up to trip her at every turn and the branches reaching out for her like skeleton hands…"

"Thank you so much for doing this, every week," Helen said, offering her a cup of coffee with hazelnut creamer, "they do love it so much."

"Are you kidding?" Sarah laughed, lounging back in her chair and nursing her tired voice with the drink. "I love it. It's encouraging, actually; when I was their age, I didn't know anyone else even _liked_ to read. And they hang on every word…makes me feel like J.K. Rowling."

"I can't imagine her popping into a little Mom n' Pop store like ours to read for free an hour every week."

Sarah chuckled. "She and I are in completely different leagues. No one would pay 10 grand to hear me read. Besides, you know I love this place; you guys were the ones who got me published to begin with, and anything I can do to help you out, you know you don't even have to ask."

"We didn't get you published," Helen smiled, sitting down on a brocaded ottoman straight out of Victorian England, "we just knew the agent who was perfect for promoting your fantastic work."

Sarah shook her head and blushed again, taking a long pull on her coffee. "And those kids; I love those kids. I just want them to be as happy with books as I was. Anything I can do to help that…" She shrugged helplessly and smiled, and Helen stood, taking her cup and patting her on the shoulder.

"You're a good kid, Sarah. Have a good night."

As the two owners went around, preparing the store for night, Sarah sat back in her chair and thought. The last hour had pushed down the memory of her strange dream(?) but still couldn't manage to banish it entirely. Now, as the noise and life left the bookstore, the foreboding and chill of it crept up on her again.

What did it mean? She'd never had any waking dream or hallucination like that in her life, and except for a few very vivid nightmares immediately following her time in the Labyrinth, she hadn't had any regular dreams about it either.

Was it just her brush with Jareth that did it? But there was such a sensation of reality about it; and how else could she explain her lips and the dust? She had _been_ there, no doubt about that; the question was, had Jareth been able to do it, despite her final words?

More questions buzzed around in her head, but she had no answers, nor even any information with which to imagine the beginnings to some answers. She had to do some digging before letting herself get carried away by her imagination.

Yes, tonight when she got home, she had to have a nice long chat with her friends. If there were something magical going on, maybe they would have some insight or clues into what Jareth was up to.

Her head hurt.

She gathered up her bag and took one last trip through the bathroom before leaving. Her lips were still dry and peeling, and there were still vestiges of sand lodged in the grout between tiles.

"What on earth are you up to?" she whispered, staring at her reflection. Though she had tried to calm herself down, she could still see a pinched look of fear around her eyes, and the strained tension around her lips.

She gritted her teeth, and threw back her head. "I told you I wasn't going to fight you, and I won't. You're going to have to do a lot more to goad me into voluntarily having anything to do with you again. Stop trying."

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and marched out of the bathroom, leaving the room in darkness. On the floor, the sand shimmered faintly, as though still reflecting the daylight shining from its own world.


	3. Challenge Accepted

Sarah did not sleep that whole night through. Even the thought of closing her eyes and surrendering to his realm was repulsive. And just because he'd managed to somehow hijack her conscious mind even while she was wide awake, she saw no reason to allow him even easier access while she slept. As such, she woke the following morning with a headache and dark circles under her eyes, and a burning sense of injustice.

She faced herself in the mirror and applied some heavy-duty foundation to the under-eye circles and gritted her teeth, snarling at her reflection. "Whatever's going on, Jareth," she bit out, "Don't think that you can get to me so easily. I'm gonna solve this, and get you out of my life for good and all."

Of course, the moment she turned away, she realized she had no way of effecting her threats.

She dressed and made her usual breakfast of egg on toast and sat at her table, chewing reflectively. What had brought him back into her life? From fifteen to thirty-three was eighteen years, more than half of her life. Was there some significance to her recent life? Other than the success of her books enabling her to retire from teaching (she'd been a high school English teacher) and relocating to DC (for the warm weather and the free museums, plus the excellent library) nothing much had happened in her life for the past few years.

After his first showing, she'd linked his presence instinctively to her books, without remembering that she'd been a published author for the past five years. Certainly they were gaining in popularity, but that still wasn't enough. He'd had plenty of reasons to call on her before now. So why now?

Perhaps, she thought, it didn't matter so much what had summoned him, but rather what she should do with him now that he was here. Where would she even go to get the information? She had heard nothing from her Underground friends, and though Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus had been scarce of late (she had been quite busy herself, what with promotions and signings and readings, and such) she thought they might have spared a few hours to give her warning if they'd seen anything suspicious.

She could ask them, but what could they know? None of them were in position to see anything related to Jareth or his plans regarding her. No, she was going to have to figure this one out by herself. And the only way she could do that would be for him to give her, directly or otherwise, more insight to his actions.

Unlikely. All she could do right now is wait for him to make his move. And carry on with her life as though he had nothing to do with it. Which he didn't.

She washed her dishes, wiped her hands, and grabbed her purse, locking the door of her apartment behind her with a sharp click. Sarah had to keep her head today; she had a guest lecture at a creative writing class and then a reading at a local elementary. Later she was meeting with her artist to discuss a change in illustration style with the new book and then she had to meet up with her agent to work out her new publisher's contract. The Labyrinth series was ending soon, and she'd come up with a new idea for a sci-fi duet that she wanted to pitch in case they might want to pick it up too.

That was the meeting she was looking forward to the most; while she loved writing her Labyrinth books, she was thrilled to be finished with the quintet and move on to a new project. The writing was all original in her series, of course, but some of the material was not, and though the plotline was her own, she always felt a little bit of a cheater about passing off his world as her own invention.

When the books first came out, she had thought he would have come to see her at the first opportunity. When he did not, and she rose to a modicum of fame and popularity, the creatures and situation of the Underground and the Labyrinth slowly becoming household names, she started to wonder if he even cared, if defeating the Labyrinth had really been such a coup for her.

She had wondered, and still wondered, and wondered now…did he look back for her? Did he think about her at all? She thought about him at least once every day, she couldn't help it. Of course, he had been the major, definitive, and in all other ways game-changing event of her life. And despite her pretty high sense of self-worth, she could easily imagine that her appearance in his life hadn't been nearly as important.

Whatever. She wouldn't know the whats or whyfors until he decided to let her know.

She trotted down the Metro stairs and hopped on the red line that would take her out to the University.

(School)

When she arrived at Franklin Elementary, she was in high good humor. The kids in the creative writing class she'd just attended were smart, intuitive kids who gave her a serious run for her intellectual money. They reminded her of herself at that age; painfully admiring and jealous of any published author, half convinced she didn't deserve the honor yet desperately hoping that she was.

So many people were published for doing little more than regurgitating their personal stories in all their gory details that when a real author came along, it almost didn't register. Sarah hoped with all her heart that she'd proven herself a real author; a master of plot and characterization who deserved to be treated with respect. She thought she had.

With that confidence, she ran up the school steps and swung down the hall to the library. She wasn't going to read from her own books today (she generally didn't, it made her embarrassed) but she loved volunteering for kids and trying to instill in them her own love for reading, even participating in an after-school literacy program. Today she was just a guest reader, taking the load off of some of the understaffed public schools by running a library class for an hour. She did this at different schools almost every day, but Franklin was one of her favorites, one of the schools she'd become familiar with ever since moving to DC two years ago.

As she came into the library, a cozy place with a worn blue carpet and cheerful seasonal decorations in construction paper (brilliant summer suns and smiling rainbows) a small cheer went up at her presence. Julia, a lanky eight-year-old with long corkscrew curls, ran up to her and locked her wiry arms around Sarah's waist. Samantha and Keisha followed shortly, and even some of the boys hung around outside their happy circle looking sheepishly happy to see her.

She greeted them all with hugs or pats and gathered them into one of the corners where she sat on a tiny plastic chair that almost put her knees up under her chin.

"So what have we decided on for today?"

Sandra came up and gave her the same volume she'd read from last week, one of her favorites, the first volume of the Junior Illustrated Classic series that dealt in fairy tales and fables. She leafed through the pages and found some of her favorite stories from Czechoslovakia.

"How about this one? I promise even the boys will like it: _Longshanks, Girth, and Keen_."

"What's it about?" Derek never trusted her to pick a good story, after she'd read the first chapter of _Little Women_ one session and he'd spent the whole time pretending to throw up behind his copy.

"It's about a prince and his three companions, one who can grow very tall, one who can get very fat, and the other who can see for miles. They go on a series of quests to save a princess from an evil sorcerer."

Sarah watched in amusement as he processed her summary and then shrugged. "Sounds all right."

"All right then." Sarah cleared her throat, settled more firmly into her chair, stretched out her legs, and began to read.

(Later)

As she helped Mrs. Brandt clear up the library tables where the third grade class had been

having their arts and crafts lesson, she indulged in some little gossip about her students.

"The boys seem calmer than usual. Even at the end of the story, after all the adventures were over and the princess was yet to be won, Derek didn't seem too restless."

"They've all been a little subdued lately. What with the whole situation about Heather, recently, they've all been quiet."

"What do you mean? Heather was here last week, I thought she might have been sick today."

Mrs. Brandt turned and looked at her, face quietly incredulous. "You mean, no one mentioned it to you?"

"Why? What's happened? Is she sick? I'm only here once a week, you know, I usually don't hear if anything big happens." Sarah's stomach prickled with nervousness. Heather was a sweet little girl, luminously dark-skinned with big brown eyes. She was the pride of her family, a smart thing who was a good achiever in school. Her parents were hopeful that she would be the first person in their family to go into college. A big responsibility for any seven-year old, but Heather had a quiet confidence that Sarah doubted any girl in her class could even understand.

Her intelligence and interest in schooling had put her close to Sarah's heart. If anything was wrong with her, she wanted to help.

"It is a strange situation, and her parents are devastated. She disappeared, three days ago."

Sarah gasped, sitting down at the table as her legs lost their power to support her. "Disappeared? What do you mean? Was she kidnapped?"

"The police have been here every day to try and trace her trail. She was at recess and just never came back. There is no evidence of foul play, and Heather is so level-headed that it seems impossible that she would just wander off or run away."

Marianne Brandt sat down across from Sarah and her busy hands fluttered to a slow stop. For once, this woman, full of cheerful activity, seemed beaten by the senseless situation.

"No one understands it. From one minute to the next, she was just gone."

A dread certainty began to pluck at Sarah's heart. Her forehead dripped cold sweat. Unbidden, the words rose to her mind, whispered in a regal, mocking tone that almost cowed her strong heart.

_You will not save them from me, Sarah. Wishes are made every day, and though that particular formula will never fail to summon me, I can, if I desire, respond to other wishes. And I do._

_I do…_

No. "No, it couldn't be," she murmured.

"Sarah?" the other woman asked, a shadow of suspicious concern passing momentarily over her face. "Have you heard anything?"

"No…I'm just…I'm just in shock. Heather…you're right, there's no earthly reason why she would have just disappeared on her own. She must have been taken."

Mrs. Brandt's face relaxed into lines of weary resignation. "You're right, of course. But no one can tell who, or where, and it doesn't look like the police are going to put too much effort into a case that they have no leads on. They've stationed a patrol around the schoolyard every day to prevent it happening again, but it looks like Heather…"

Her voice failed and her shoulders bent forward as she cried. Sarah leaned forward and put her hands around the other woman, her mind a restless whirl. Three days ago…three days ago the Goblin King had come back into her life, and even though she didn't know it, a child precious to her had disappeared yet again.

Was he so sick? Was this his challenge to her, reminding her that he had power over aspects of her life even though he couldn't touch her personally? His casual appearance in her living room, his subtle threats, his nightmares…all these things asserted his superiority over her. And now, one of her children was gone.

It was infuriating.

Sarah felt her rage building up in white heat behind her eyes to the point of physical pain. She felt the very air around her body charging with her energy, her desire for justice. Unconsciously she stood and moved down the hall, not realizing that she was running until she jumped all the way down the stairs at the front of the building.

She didn't know how the people around her on the subway didn't burn up from the intensity of her anger, but she didn't notice how some of them looked at her askance, unable to parse their own sensations of uneasiness around this tall, dark-haired woman whose eyes were so discomfiting.

It was only in the safety of her own apartment that she tore off her light jacket and stood, feet wide apart and fists clenched.

"Jareth." She snarled, head up and eyes proud. "Jareth. Goblin King. I summon you. Jareth, come here and face me!"

"You should be glad I have such a soft spot for you, Sarah. I hardly ever react to such blatant commands."

At the sound of his voice, softer than she would have thought it would be, she turned. Upon meeting his eyes, she realized that she had never, in her life, in all the wild and often irrational imaginings of her childhood and teenage years, hated anyone with the cold loathing with which she despised him.

If she had thought that her hatred would have given him pause, made him react in some shamefaced way, she was dead wrong.

But the strength of her feeling froze into ice when he looked back at her with a narrow eyed grin that seemed more horrifying than any shadow nightmare or smirking evil that she had ever seen or dreamed of.

"Good. Hate me, Sarah. You will need to."


	4. Play the Game

Cold blood burned in her veins, and she felt herself break into a sweat. The hatred was so intense she almost felt it building behind her eyes, and the blood racing through her body made her fingers tremble. Her lips wavered, but she could not speak.

"If looks could kill, my dear," he purred, stance widening as he took in her pale face and rigid limbs. "Unfortunately for your sake—"

His sentence broke off abruptly as his head snapped backwards from Sarah's slap.

She gasped, staring down at her hands. She _hadn't_ slapped him, had only imagined slapping him; the image so strong it was as if her hand had reached out and raked across his smug, smiling face…what on earth had just happened?

Jareth straightened with one elegant motion of his body, the surprise on his face masked quickly when he noticed Sarah's searching eyes on him. The expression on his face frightened her more than his feral smile. He looked coiled, tight, the way a panther crouches on all fours to rally its strength before leaping for the jugular.

Whatever had just happened, it seemed that she did have some way to fight him. The thought gave her courage and she tightened her jaw, staring him down.

"Maybe in my case, looks _can_ kill, Jareth," she said, summoning up the white-hot feeling that had trembled all up and down her arms before she'd 'struck' him.

"I have no idea how you did that," he said, voice devoid of all its usual lyric humor, "but I can assure you that you will not do it again. Much as I want this contest between us, Sarah, do not think me so fair that I want you to have such formidable weapons. Thus…" he gestured with one hand, motioning towards her and clenching his hand in a fist just short of her face.

Sarah cried out, feeling her heart tighten in her chest and her skin go deathly cold before her knees gave out on her. She collapsed, breathing deeply, and tried to keep her quickly-swallowed breakfast in her stomach. When the urge to vomit passed, along with the vice-grip of magic on her skin, she stood up, meeting his eyes.

The loathing was still as strong as ever, but the feeling of power was gone. Whatever he'd done to her, it had made her helpless against him.

She snarled, "No power over me! How can you twist the meaning of that to _hurt_ me, you bastard! What did you do?"

Jareth smiled again, tight and controlled. "You attacked the ruler of the Labyrinth, Sarah. You assaulted the Goblin King. No parameter of any spell invented prevents a King from defending himself against an attack. Unfortunately for you, that attack meant I could limit your own powers in any way I pleased. Such a pity…those might have come in handy for the challenge I have in mind for you."

Sarah could have strangled him, but she needed to calm herself down. Her anger had already cost her a weapon; now the only thing she could get in her advantage was information. She had to find out what he had planned; for her and for Heather.

"My own powers? I don't remember doing anything like this before."

He did not answer her. "I am surprised, Sarah. Pleasantly, I must say. No recriminations, no tantrums…you're trying to get the whip hand over me. But I am no monologue-driven, mustache-twirling villain of your flat little world. Your powers were unknown to you, and unknown they will remain."

"Unknown to me?" Sarah asked, clamping down on her panic, "But clearly not unknown to you."

He did not answer, merely tilted his head and regarded her with a slight smile. "I find myself looking forward so much to this, Sarah," he said, hand lifting to take a strand of her hair between his gloved fingertips, "it has been quite a long time since I had the thrill of a challenge quite like you."

"You're sick," Sarah said, keeping her voice level even as her fists clenched to the point of pain. "You kidnap an innocent girl to get my attention and force me back into your sick games…why? Why now? Something had to summon you into this world and it sure as hell wasn't me. So why are you here?"

"Do you think I need human authorization to enter your world?" He laughed, turning away from her to stare out the window down on the street below. "Your world is not even your own. There are so many layers that you have neither the wit nor the inclination to see. I can walk abroad in full sight of most humans and they would not even look twice."

"Not even when you're dressed like a reject from a Renaissance fair?" Sarah fell back on sarcasm to try and unsettle him, eyeing him and his midnight blue cape with raised eyebrows. "I could see you getting away with that outfit in New York, but D.C.'s a little more conservative."

"Yes," he drawled, turning from the window, "so conservative that all these little rats are sewn into their business suits, and their laws, and their regulations, and their constituencies…honestly, Sarah, have you never thought that things would be so much cleaner and simpler with just one person telling everyone what to do?"

"The way things work in the Underground?" She shot back. "No thanks. Democracy may be the long way round, but don't think I'll ever accept you telling me what to do, Goblin King."

"But that is exactly what you will have to do, Sarah," his smile grew wide again, and she bit down on her lip to stop herself shivering.

"Stop saying that," Sarah snapped, feeling her temper rise and the lingering spell Jareth had used on her tightening against her skin. At his questioning look—more mockery than anything else—she elaborated. "Stop saying my name."

"How would you like me to address you then, my Lady?" he said, his tone falsely solicitous. "You have no lands or title in this world, no position by which I might call you…you have only your name to call your own. And it is such a lovely name."

"Stop it," she hissed. "I have no idea what you're after. You have all the power here, which I'm sure makes you very happy. If it's me you want, then you've got me." Her breath came quick as she took a stop forward, feeling his innate magic prickle against the spell he'd cast. The two fields of power fluttered against each other like a greeting, and Sarah could tell from the half-lidded look Jareth cast her that he could feel the sensation too.

"Whatever you want, whatever you're planning," she continued, voice low, "Heather isn't a part of it. She's an innocent little kid, and I will not have you using her for one of your twisted games."

His eyes did not leave her face, but he did not answer. Sarah's teeth clamped down on the inside of her lip. She had to throw out some bait, she had to get him to release Heather.

She stepped closer and her voice dropped lower still, almost intimate in the hushed stillness of her apartment.

"I'm here. You've got me. If Heather was the bait, it worked. I'm here. Now just let her go."

There was a terrifying warmth in Jareth's eyes as her words got through to him. His gaze roamed from her face down the length of her body, and he shifted closer. The sensation between them grew electric, intense, and Sarah had to force herself to keep her place. The fear she had felt on seeing him again in her living room rushed back to her; how could she survive being this close to him? The inside of a star…such burning heat was something a mortal should never hope to see and survive.

His breath teased her ear. She felt him breathe in and out, twice, three times. Then a hint of laughter, breathy soft, just before he said,

"Nice try."

The jolt she received in both her palms as she put her hands against his chest and _shoved_ was enough to make her heart skip a beat, but when she heard his laugh expand to fill the room with scornful echoes, she wished she'd taken the chance and broken his long nose. If he ever came that close again, she'd do it.

"Bastard," she hissed, rubbing her palms together to soothe the hurt. "What do you _want_?"

"I want to play a game," he said, voice still rich from laughing. "You got the better of me the last time we played, but that was a child's game. I was handicapped because of the rules. But now you are the full age of adulthood and consent in both my world and yours, and I have waited a long time to get even with you."

"Thirty-three? That's the age of consent?"

"The age of Christ when he died, Sarah," Jareth said, "What's good for the goose…"

She shook her head. That puzzle could wait.

"So what does that mean, age of adulthood and consent? How does that change the game?"

"It means, among other things, that I get to use the full extent of my powers in playing," Jareth's smile was more frightening than a shark's. "I was handicapped last time, and your 'dangers untold and hardships unnumbered' were barely deserving of the name. This time, we will see how the game ends."

"You said 'among other things'. What other things?"

"Well, the stakes are higher. We play for life and death, freedom and slavery," his gaze lingered on her as he caressed that last word, "Or, to put it in another way, Heather's life or death, and her freedom or slavery." He wrung his hands like a servant girl. "Surely you would not abandon the child to such a cruel fate!"

"If Heather is not the age of adulthood and consent, then how can you threaten her life?" Sarah was determined not to let panic overwhelm her just because Jareth was trying to make her afraid. There had to be a way around this; there just had to be a way to get Heather out of this situation!

"What was I going to do to your brother, Sarah?"

Sarah sighed, the sound trembling as it came out.

"What do I have to do?"

Jareth closed his eyes and ticked off his requirements on his fingers. "Just because you are the age of consent does not mean that your consent is automatically granted. I require three things in order to release Heather from serving as security on your behalf: first, that you consent to playing the game; second, that you consent to playing on my terms, and third, that should you lose the game, you accept whatever penalty I give you."

Cold terror gripped her in the stomach. She couldn't stop her voice from shaking as she said, "B=before I consent to anything, I need a definition of your terms and the penalty if I should lose."

"Sarah," he drawled, summoning a crystal and idly spinning it from hand to hand, "I am the king of the Labyrinth; the ever-changing, the maze of tricks. Do you honestly think that any definition I give you would stay a constant in this challenge to come?"

"I think that you are bound by your own laws," Sarah rejoined, feeling a bit more certain on this point. "I think that until I ceded power to you in an attack against you, that you had no power over me. That implies a spell with some parameters and some fine print; both of which you had to obey and wait for _me_ to violate. I think—"

His attack was lightning, the crystal flying towards her before she had a chance to blink. As it burst against her mouth, she cried out in anticipation of the pain of glass shards piercing her skin, but found that instead of the pain, she had no wounds, but no voice.

"You _think_," he snarled, "What you think is of no consequence. You can haggle all you want, but the facts remain that I have one of your precious children, and there is no need for me to answer any of your questions. I could change the girl, make her a goblin…forever."

He drew the crystal together again, and air and voice rushed back into Sarah's lungs. Jareth flourished the reassembled sphere in her direction, and when Sarah looked into its depths she saw Heather's frightened eyes peering back out. Echoes of lonely sobs trembled in her ears.

"Where am I? Please, please let me go home!"

Sarah gasped and stepped backwards, but the voice pursued her. She clutched her hands around her ears, but it wasn't enough.

She glared up at Jareth.

"How do I know that if I violate one of your unspoken terms you won't just declare me loser by default?"

He vanished the crystal. The sobs cut off, and the silence in the apartment was deafening.

"You don't."

Sarah straightened, raised her head. "Well, then…"

The silence stretched, grew…became a live presence prowling between the two of them.

"I consent."


	5. And Soon the Darkness

Jareth's smile stretched wide, like a cat's when scratched behind the ears. His eyes closed slowly, luxuriously, as he enjoyed Sarah's straight-backed resigned resolve. She stared at him; how like the man to have a moment of indecent, almost obscene enjoyment at her expense. She dug her nails into her palm; she'd accepted, and he would have to let Heather go. One worry, at least, would be done away with.

Of course, she'd probably just gone ahead and created about half a million more for herself. Heather would be safe, though. That was a win, the single victory she could claim from this last half-hour's altercation, and it would be enough. For now.

Sarah took a slow breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Then another.

The silence stretched on for another beat. The Jareth opened his eyes.

His smile got even wider.

"The Challenge and its Requirements are accepted," he said, making the words sound capitalized to Sarah's ears. The very air seemed to listen in on his declaration, and her skin crawled as she felt the veil of her reality shift in preparation to part.

She couldn't stand the strain. "Yes, accepted, and now you have to let Heather go. Your part of the deal, remember?"

"Heather is no longer security on your behalf," he conceded, nodding, "I release her as such."

Sarah waited a moment. 'Well? Where is she? Bring her back."

"Why should I?"

Sarah opened her mouth to retort, then closed her eyes. Her face went pale as she realized what a _stupid_ mistake she'd made. She took a breath, if only to stop herself lunging for him.

Her eyes opened in slits. "You unimaginable bastard."

He laughed aloud, the nasty laugh of a child pulling the wings off a fly. "You really did walk into that one, you know."

"I _know_," she snarled. "If you aren't going to bring her back here, I suppose she'll just be wandering the Labyrinth? I'll find her, you know."

"You will try," he said, a knowing smile curling his lips. "Speaking of trials, shall we go?"

He motioned elegantly to the wall behind her, and Sarah turned. Where her ratty blue sofa had previously been, shoved up against a wall hung with pictures of family and friends, the room had simply melted away, revealing a sweeping hill overlooking the Labyrinth.

At first glance, Sarah's stout heart shivered inside her.

A child of the eighties, one of Sarah's first video games had been _Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past_. She had loved that game to death, and played it every spare moment she could, loving the feeling of being a crusading warrior, finding mythical objects and weapons to defeat the evil Gannon. Even though she'd been a teenager when the game came out, certain parts of it had still creeped her out.

The second part of the game, especially, when all the world turned to darkness, and cheerful fields of wildflowers and bustling town squares had reversed themselves into altars to evil rulers and fields of overgrown weeds. Walking through those places had felt _wrong_; even at age 17, playing that part of the game bothered her on a deep, uncertain level.

When she set her eyes on the Labyrinth, after a distance of eighteen years, she got those same quivers in her stomach. Something was _wrong_.

The sand was still orange underneath her feet, and hot wind still stirred restlessly through the stringy weeds clustered on the hillside. Above the great maze, however, the clouds swirled together in a gray-green vortex, like the precursor to a giant tornado, and heat lightning flashed intermittently from cloud to cloud. The air was heavy and moist; every second Sarah expected the storm to break, but not a drop of rain splashed against her feverish face.

The light cast by the clouds threw the whole scene into a gray haze, and the twists and cul-de-sacs of the maze seemed pregnant with ominous shadows, places where people could disappear, just falling into the darkness that spooled from the heart of the man who stood behind her.

Sarah turned to face him. She had to remember he wasn't a man. Not as she defined one. His face was harsh angles in that strange, unsettling light, and his eyes were dark with the same shadows that haunted his creation. The wind whipped at her hair and his cloak, and she felt suddenly as though he could just rise into the sky and leave her here, breath coming short with sudden, wrenching fear, to lose herself in the endless passages of this foul, changed child of his mind.

"I hope you like your second time through as much as your first, Sarah," he said, voice cold and satisfied as he took in her subdued expression, "I thought of you as I made it."

"You shouldn't have," Sarah said, keeping her voice as cool as his and edging it with a blade of sarcasm. "It's fantastic."

"In more ways than you know," he said.

She waited for him to continue, shifting from one foot to the other. He looked at her, and the silence was deafening, cut only by the sound of the wind and the clouds crashing against each other overhead.

"Well?" she prompted. "Where's the speech? 'Thirteen hours before you become one of us forever' ring any bells?"

He was silent. Sarah went on.

"Do you want me to do your job for you? I don't have all day, you know."

"Indeed," he drawled, "you _do_ only have the thirteen hours."

"Although," she cut him off, laughing dryly, "I really should have sixteen. After all, you shorted me last time, remember?"

"I do. But you will have thirteen hours as before, unless you'd prefer to do it in ten? After all, you only had ten before."

Sarah felt herself losing patience.

"Thirteen hours will do fine. Can I get going?"

"Wait," he held up a hand, "first, the Rules."

There again with that weird sense of capitalization in his voice. There was something ritual about the whole thing, but Sarah wanted to hear these; anything to keep herself from losing the game by default.

"I'm all ears."

He grinned, "Thankfully, you are not."

_Walked into that one_, Sarah thought with a mental groan. She put one hand on her hip and cocked her head in the image of insolent impatience.

"First, you shall walk the roads."

_Don't see much alternative to that_.

"Second, you shall fly the skies."

_That could be problematic, especially given this weather_.

"Third, you shall find your friends."

Sarah nodded. "Roads, skies, friends. Got it. Now can I go?"

He nodded, and gestured. She turned to go as he said, "I would not dream of keeping you from it. Thirteen hours, four friends to find, two ways to travel, one city to reach. Three possible Resolutions. Can you do it, Sarah?"

"I don't know what your whole new thing is with numerology is, Goblin King," she shot back, turning back to look at him, "But the way I see it, there's only one resolution: that I will beat you. I'm curious to see what you think the others are."

"Clearly, you ignore the possibility of me beating you; that is the one most attractive to me," Jareth said, "But had you considered the chance that Heather might escape, but you might not?"

She stared at him. "We're both getting out of here, Goblin King. Count on that."

"Pun intended?" The smile around his mouth turned impish.

Sarah sighed, and started down the hill to the gates. "If it makes you happy."

She'd thought her voice was too soft to reach him, but the wind must have born her words backwards, because as she slid down the loose scree on the hillside, dress shoes slipping treacherously on the sand and pebbles, she heard him call back, "Your magnanimity is astounding, lady!"

_Jerk_, she thought viciously to herself, and concentrated on reaching the bottom in one piece.

She threw just one look back when she got down the hill. She saw Jareth watching her, his eyes thrown into total darkness. The only expression on his face came from the white of his bared teeth as he smiled down at her. He bowed, arm swept before him, and vanished in a swirl of iridescent cape and gathering darkness.

Sarah turned then, and skirted the wall of the maze, searching for the gates.

She couldn't find them, at first. Vines and crawlers grew in sprawling masses from each crack and cranny in the aged rock, obscuring the gates and their huge, carved handles from her sight. Sarah relied on sense of touch instead, dragging her hand across the living curtain, trying to feel the stone under her hand.

The plants raised a bit of outcry at her rough treatment, especially when she knocked a few stems of eyeball lichen to the ground. She bit back her automatic apology, but found herself laughing wryly at the ridiculous nature of the situation. Of all the things she never thought to see again!

Clearly, the plants hadn't expected to see her either. As she walked, Sarah heard hundreds of tiny whispers, all saying a variation on, "It's her! She's come back…the girl! Sarah!"

How on earth did they know her name? She tried to ask one of the plants as she went by, but they merely shut their eyes and waited until she'd passed; the whispers started up again.

A few hundred yards down the wall, Sarah felt the carved knocker under her hand, the edges rough and crusted with moss. She pulled down the vines that blocked the hinges of the huge gates, and pulled. The doors didn't budge. She tried again. No luck.

"Oh, for goodness sake!" she cried. This was ridiculous. How did Jareth expect her to 'walk the roads' if she couldn't even _get_ to the stupid roads?

_Ask the right questions_, she thought.

She didn't remember Hoggle asking, but it was worth a try.

"Will you please let me in?"

One of the knockers shifted, chin slowly moving down in a solemn nod. With a great groan and the sound of many snapping branches, the doors creaked open. A gust of foul smelling mist washed over her, and Sarah drew her sleeve over her nose. Rotting vegetation, fetid mud, and stagnant rainwater…what had happened to the Labyrinth of her imagination? Why would Jareth do this to a place he lived only to get his revenge on her?

All good questions, but she didn't have time to think of them now. Hand still over her nose, she crossed the threshold, and the doors closed with a deep crash behind her.

No turning back now.

Sarah turned down the long hallway to her right, dragging the tips of her fingers over the damp stone, waiting to feel the tell-tale entrance that would lead her into the maze proper.

"Step one," she murmured to herself to try and shake her sense of ominous fear, "is to find the trio. With Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ludo, I can solve this thing in no time at all. Step two is to get Heather—"

She climbed over the rotting body of a felled tree, stumbling when the soft wood split with a wet crack under her weight. She shook the dirty splinters off her pant leg, grimacing.

"This is disgusting! I know the Labyrinth was never clean, but it was never like this."

She went on. "The trio will probably know where Jareth keeps his prisoners, too, so they could take me to Heather. Once she's out, I can have Sir Didymus take her out of the Labyrinth. She shouldn't have to go on with us to the Goblin City."

Coming to another log in her path, Sarah took a running jump over it, sliding momentarily in the soggy patch of moss on the far side. Catching her breath, she went forward.

"Step three is to confront that bastard and make sure he agrees to _my_ terms this time…I've had it with his smug face in my life."

Her hand went through the wall. Sarah stood back and wiped her hands on her jeans—they were already dirty and she'd just throw them out when she got home—and cast a final glance up and down the corridor before walking through.

Just as she passed through, her eyes fell on a little hole in one of the stones to her left. She paused as a little cord tugged at her memory; it was the worm's house! But now lichen crusted the entryway and the ledge was slippery with green-black mud, and Sarah couldn't reconcile her memory of that dapper, polite creature with such a home.

He must have moved out.

_Unless_, Sarah's pessimistic mind whispered, _something else happened to him. In the video game, everything and everyone that had been harmless before became your enemy, remember?_

Sarah stalked through the entrance. "This isn't a video game," she said, looking around at the multitude of passageways that spiraled off in all directions. She sighed.

"If it were, I could be sure to find something to help me through this."

Standing now closer underneath the vortex that encompassed so much of the sky, she shivered. Fighting back the fear, she shrugged and said,

"No guarantees this time."

One path was much like the other. She chose one to her right and walked forward.

Behind her, the eyeball lichen stared at itself and its neighbors, and whispered, "She's back! He's got her back! He's got her back!"


	6. True Dangers

Sarah was ten steps into her first path in the Labyrinth, and already her heart was sinking inside her. Whether her memory had been playing tricks on her all these years, or whether she was getting more pessimistic with age, she seemed to have forgotten just how _huge_ the maze was, how staggering and confusing its multitude of pathways. How Jareth must have been amused to see her rather simplistic description of its scope! She turned left, then right, hit dead-ends and backtracked, emerging twenty steps _behind_ where she had first entered!

Sarah stomped her foot and snarled under her breath. How could she make any headway like this?

"Stop," she told herself firmly, "this isn't going to help. Besides, if the runner shapes the maze, then thinking that it is unsolvable will make it unsolvable. Relax."

Orders internalized, she started again.

At least the disorder of the maze forced her to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and distracted her thoughts from the chaos that troubled them. The body of the maze was no less filthy than its skin; again, tree trunks and clots of muddy leaves littered the corridors, ringed by pools of cloudy water reflecting the swirling skies. If possible though, the wreckage here was more sinister. Instead of just the eyeball lichen, new plants with wide, toothy, gaping mouths snapped at her as she passed; one of them snagged her shirt sleeve and tore off a scrap as she went by. Sarah jumped and almost backed into another bank of the vicious things.

She rubbed her arm and went on, feeling her heart pound in her throat. She could have sworn that the plant smirked at her.

"Okay…" she muttered, examining the shredded hole on her sleeve, "keeping well away from the walls, then." She had no doubt that those teeth were strong enough to chomp through her flesh. Jareth said the stakes were higher now that she was of age, and it seemed like he really meant this time to give her true "dangers untold".

Keeping to the center of the path was harder than it sounded. The stones in the center were well-worn from the passing of many feet, and with the moisture they were slick with algae and her shoes found little traction. As such, she found herself more mincing delicately rather than striding resolutely along the passageways. Her blood boiled at the wasted time.

She stopped. Her shoes were not helping her. It might be disgusting, but…

She toed them off and stepped on the stones in her sock feet. After one or two steps, they were coated with filth, but at least her progress was faster. She knotted her shoes together, slung them over her shoulder, and broke into a jog, turning down the halls at random.

Rounding one corner, a stone gave out under her feet and she fell full-length, her hands clutching at the walls in panic and cracking through vines as she dropped.

"Ow," she said, whimpering as she examined her scratched palms, bleeding from tiny whip lines through the skin. Her left knee was bruised and the bones creaked as she shifted. Sarah gathered herself up and looked at the stone that had been her downfall.

Odd. It was bare of any mud or algae, and she couldn't tell what had made her fall over it until she saw the pale pattern of raised markings. It looked like a runic character, but she couldn't understand the language; it didn't quite look like anything she was familiar with from her world. Was it a language endemic to the Underground?

The questions, though fascinating, had to be shoved to the back of her mind. Sarah groaned as she clambered back to her feet. Five years in the international spotlight, worldwide stops of her book tours, and somehow, back in the Labyrinth, she could still feel like a grungy fifteen-year-old, playing games with her mother's makeup and high heels.

Also, at what age did it hurt so much to fall? Her whole body felt bruised, not just her knee, and it was hard to get her breath. Had she been so proud that she deserved to find herself at the bottom of this particular tumble?

Again, good questions. Not to be answered now.

A sudden roar behind her shocked her out of all abstract thought. Her heart began to pound again as she examined her surroundings; the path was empty, but also bare of anything she could use as a weapon…except…

Sarah knelt and pried up the stone from where she'd knocked it loose. It was a comforting weight in her hand, and she squared her shoulders as she faced the direction of the roar.

Hoof beats, sharp and decisive, sharp as gunshots, sounded against the stone, drawing nearer. Sarah stilled her breathing and prayed that whatever the threat was would pass her by. Just pass her by…

A hoarse, earthy snuffle sounded next, and Sarah saw the boar's muzzle as it sniffed her out.

The boat was a giant creature, standing three feet off the ground, and solid muscle covered with wiry hair. It, like its surroundings, was none too clean, and Sarah stepped back, edging down the corridor and praying that a side passage would open up so she could run.

The pig gnashed its huge teeth, incisors glistening with green mucous, and Sarah edged back another few steps. One bite from that and she'd probably have gangrene by the time she reached the Castle. Her fingers gripped the stone tighter; maybe if she hit it in the right place, she could knock it cold.

For three heart beats, the two held their positions. Then the pig squealed and grunted, starting a quick trot towards her.

Sarah hesitated a moment, then turned and ran.

Her shoes beat against her shoulders and her socks slipped in the muck, and she heard the pig's hooves like a ticking clock behind her, getting ever closer as she fled. Her breath was wild, uneven. She wasn't going to make it.

On her right, the wall was half crumbled down. Sarah took a chance and snagged a vine as she passed, using it for leverage to swing herself up and into the next hallway. She fell against the wall as she passed and scraped her jeans to ribbons against the teeth of the carnivorous plants that sprouted from the cracks.

The hole was too high for the boar could jump through, though it tried a few times and its hooves snagged the edge more than once. It squealed furiously and paced restlessly underneath the gap. Sarah's blood boiled. She yanked one of the tooth plants from the wall and leaned through the whole; the pig looked up and she raked its face with the plant.

The sound the boar made was horrible, and Sarah's ears rang with its cries. But it sped down the corridor and disappeared through a passageway on the left. After a few moments, Sarah only heard her own ragged breathing and the sound of the wind whistling down the hallways.

"Oh God," she panted, resting her head on her bent knees, the stone still clenched in her fist banging against her sore knee. As much as it hurt, she couldn't bring herself to let go.

"Okay," she said, trying to control her breath and the pounding of her heart. "Okay, you're all right. Get up. Keep going."

Sarah got to her feet, feeling her knees shake as they took her weight. Despite her body's reaction, she actually felt quite good.

First challenge overcome. She could certainly handle others. But she wasn't about to let go of her rock, and she was certain to keep her eyes open for other weapons as she went along.

It was like trying to survive the zombie apocalypse, Sarah thought, smiling to herself. Everything had potential to be used in her fight.

The pathway she found herself in now was partially shadowed by a curved wall on her right, and the ground underneath it was dry and clean, for once. The path veered slightly upwards as well, and was unbroken by doors into other halls. The course it was taking made Sarah's heart leap; perhaps she'd found herself a shortcut into the hedge section of the maze! As soon as the thought occurred to her though, she quashed it. It wouldn't do to give herself any false hope; she still had a long way to go.

She was enjoying the smooth stones under her feet when she felt another one give way beneath her. This time, she had enough balance to stay upright, but when she turned to look at the offending rock, she immediately caught sight of the raised markings on its surface.

"Oh crap," she said, holding it her hand next to the other stone she'd taken. The markings were not the same, but the runic script was unmistakable.

"Hell," Sarah said, just as a rumble started up ahead of her. "What now?"

As the rumble grew louder, Sarah decided that she didn't want to wait to find out.

Sticking to the dry ground, she fled back down the pathway she'd come, swearing under her breath the whole time. Some heroine she was, running away from every danger before even seeing what it was she faced! But the shape of the corridor, once something puzzling, was now more understandable, and she had a good idea of what was rushing down behind her.

Her breath was short, but she managed to yell, "I thought you were more creative than this, Jareth!" as the boulder burst into sight behind her, its round bulk filling the entire passageway and leaving her no other choice than run or be crushed.

She ran. If she could make it back to the gap in the wall, she could jump back into the hall she'd just left. But it was a maze of tricks, after all, and Sarah saw that the tooth plants had grown up into the gap during her ten minute absence, and now her choice was run, be crushed, or be cut to pieces if she tried to go back the way she'd come.

Sarah ran. The ground under her feet was more uneven and slick now, and she flew along, faster and faster, feeling her pace getting beyond her control. She shrieked as the inevitable happened; she tripped, and her momentum kept her rolling downhill like a log, so quickly that she could not get her feet under her again. As she rolled, Sarah flung one of her stones to the side of the passageway, hoping that it might wedge the boulder in place; the rolling sphere merely smashed the rock into dust as it rattled on.

She screamed, "Somebody help me!" but her voice just bounced from wall to wall in the passage and she couldn't hear the echo after a moment. Besides, who was there to help?

Dizzy-sick and so battered that she could barely get a panting breath, Sarah thumped to a stop at the end of the passageway. Her feet scrabbled underneath her, desperate for purchase against the wet stone, and Sarah dropped her other rock as her fingers gripped the cobbles for traction. She launched herself to her feet, but there was no where to go; the passage was closed and walled on all sides. She pounded the walls, feeling for some weak spot, some give in the stones, but there was nothing. No trapdoor underneath her feet, no vines to climb.

She was trapped. She had, at most, forty-five seconds before her life ended.

"Somebody help me!"


End file.
